Finding Family

By Tonya Bolden

Delana has never known her parents. Raised by her Aunt Tilley and a reclusive grandfather, Delana has led a sheltered existence, nurtured on her aunt's wild family histories. But when Aunt Tilley dies, Delana confronts her pent-up curiosities and embarks on a quest to unravel her aunt's fictions and draw out her mysterious grandfather. In searching for her true history, Delana finds herself, and a home in the one place she never thought to look. This moving fictional story is imagined from real antique photographs that author Tonya Bolden has collected. Bolden's well-researched historical details about 1905 Charleston, West Virginia lend authenticity, while spare, lyrical writing make this young girl's coming-of-age resonate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781599908656

Tonya Bolden

Tonya Bolden’s books have earned much praise and numerous starred reviews. Her work has been recognized with the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children and the Carter G. Woodson Book Award and listed as a CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. She is also the recipient of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, DC’s Nonfiction Award for her body of work. Her Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl was a Coretta Scott King Author Honor book. Visit her website at www.tonyaboldenbooks.com.

Book preview

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Prologue

I was five, maybe six, the very first time I laid eyes on a dragonfly—spellbound by its magical dazzle. From then on, whenever I saw dragonflies, I got as close as I could, making merry in my mind over their shimmershine—red, blue, copper, green.

All I had was fairy tale thoughts, fancying dragonflies, like butterflies, jewelry for the sky.

My jumping-jack joy for dragonflies dimmed, then died, after Aunt Tilley told me some folks call them the Devil’s darning needles.

That night I had the worst nightmare of my life.

I was cuddled up in the porch swing, eyes closed against a setting sun, when, suddenly, I felt a fluttering around my face, then dragonflies sewing up my lids. I tried to scream—they started stitching shut my lips.

After that dream, I never closed my eyes when dragonflies were near—and kept my distance. Always would, I reckoned. But little did I know, when I was twelve, that a change was coming as touched on dragonflies. And everything else in my world.

One

You have six toes?" spat Viola Kimbrough. This was in the school yard during recess on what was, till then, a peaceable early September day.

Viola was standing right over Adena Mullins when she asked about her toes.

Adena was on her haunches, drawing something in the dirt.

I say something because I was off a ways by myself at the picnic table, keeping neat, being meek as a lamb, like Aunt Tilley told me good girls were to be.

Nothing meek about Viola. Vicious to the bone.

I asked you a question. Viola stamped her foot. Six toes. Yes or no?

Adena kept drawing.

I wished I had it in me to tell Viola to leave Adena alone. I felt bad for her, especially as Adena was so new to our school. The Mullins family hadn’t been in Charleston long, with Adena’s pa working the seasons and her ma taking in laundry and selling handicrafts. Adena helped out on pickups and deliveries.

Take off your shoes! Viola was louder now. Meaner, too. She shoved Adena, then hollered for other Kimbroughs—Macey! Charlie! Hold her down!

Next, Viola whipped around, eyes daggerlike at me. Dumb Delana, get over here and take off Adena’s shoes!

Lawdamercy! All of me trembled. I could hear my heart thump-thumping. My stomach did a churn.

Viola! Macey! Charlie!

That was our teacher, Miss Tolliver, in the doorway. Her eyes said a soft there, there when she glanced at Adena, then at me, but they were like stone as she beckoned the three Kimbroughs inside.

I didn’t expect Viola and her cousins to get punished much. Viola’s father was the richest colored man in the county—and the school’s Santa Claus, giving more than even Grandpa. Mr. Kimbrough had just presented our principal everything the school needed to have a brass band, from a tuba to a big, boom-boom bass drum.

Thump-thumping. My heart was still thump-thumping though the Kimbroughs were gone from the yard. I said a silent Thank you, Father God! for Miss Tolliver. She had come just in the nick of time. Not just for Adena’s sake. Miss Tolliver had been my rescue, too.

Truth be told, in that split second between Viola’s command and Miss Tolliver’s Viola, Macey, Charlie! I was in a terrible tug-of-war—yanked to turn my back on Viola, yanked to do her bidding. Maybe then she’d stop picking on me.

Thanks to Miss Tolliver, I was spared having to choose.

- - - - -

Still, that tug-of-war kept pricking me, like on the afternoon, a few days later, when Aunt Tilley up and remarked that I had a spacious mind.

I started to cry. I thought it was a way of calling me a fool, dumb, or something else bad—like Viola Kimbrough did me.

Dumb Delana, get over here and take off Adena’s shoes!

Aunt Tilley must have felt me well up.

"Oh no, Delana, don’t cry! I’m telling you about your blessing! You are a child of promise!" Then she gave me her sunshine smile.

We were out on the back porch. Aunt Tilley and Grandpa in rockers by the door. Me off to the side in the swing.

As was our Sunday custom, we had come outside after dinner to behold Creation. That’s how Aunt Tilley put it.

I was beholding a horde of dragonflies. They were hovering around the blue hydrangea, moving back and forth, side to side.

At first, it seemed Aunt Tilley was looking at the dragonflies, too, but it was more like she was staring through them as she talked on about me being a child of promise and how she named me Delana because we are kin to Martin Delany.

He was born over up in Jefferson County, back when there was just one Virginny. There was no West Virginia like we live in now.

I’d learned all about the making of West Virginia in school. About Martin Delany, too, but the most I remembered clear was that he’d started the first newspaper for our people out this way. The Mystery was its name. Now that I knew he was kin, my mind perked up.

Aunt Tilley was all het up for me to remember everything about Martin Delany as she raced on about how he was a doctor, wrote books, went to Africa in search of a ripe place for colored people to live, then changed his mind when the Civil War broke out. He joined the Union army.

"First of our race to make major—and on Father Abraham’s say-so! Aunt Tilley saluted the strange and sultry air. Knew if I named you Delana, you’d make the family proud like Martin did."

Grandpa twisted up his face like he wished Aunt Tilley would hush, then hung his head when she didn’t.

Right along with his Missus, Martin Delany had high hopes for their children. Give them names to point the way! Aunt Tilley exclaimed, then went to squinting like she was sorting through a tin of tiny buttons.

Now, Tilley, Grandpa sighed, that’s enough about Martin Delany. No need to go on with this.

Aunt Tilley kept searching her mind.

Alexander Doomas! she finally cried out, smacking her lips in satisfaction. That’s what the Delanys named one son. Another one … after that great Haiti man—Two Cent!

The dragonflies were still doing a dance with me keeping top-eye open should they swarm nearer to the house.

The screen door shut. Grandpa had gone inside. To the sitting room, I guessed. To play checkers with himself.

Aunt Tilley didn’t seem to notice Grandpa had left. Other children, she mumbled, face all frantic and scratching her head, Lawdamercy … names on the run.

After a long silence, Aunt Tilley asked, Picked what you’ll stitch next? like needlework had been the course of conversation all along.

No’m. I knew she’d pick no matter what I thought.

Pink primrose be nice.

Yes’m.

When I glanced again at the hydrangea, I saw the dragonflies hover up, then dart away.

Two

Time for needlework!" Aunt Tilley was getting more and more twitchy, flitting from thing to thing.

I had been up in my room, practicing cursive like she told me, when she hollered up the stairs.

So I put my pen down and headed to the sitting room, where we always did our needlework: me having to embroider hankies, her only making doilies lately.

Rounds, squares, rectangles, ovals. Long, short. For dressers, bureaus, tables. For chair and sofa backs. Aunt Tilley made those doilies so fast—sometimes four, five a day—like she was in a doily-making race and the prize was her life.

Aunt Tilley had even started coming to breakfast with her hook and yarn, forsaking all food and only taking coffee, then letting that get cold as all she did was talk and crochet.

On the afternoon she called me away from my cursive, I took my place on the sitting room sofa and started stitching. She still had me doing primroses. Periwinkle this time.

But not for long. Before the clock chimed, Aunt Tilley put down her hook and yarn, eyed me to do likewise with

Reviews for Finding Family

[68papyrus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Finding Family was a quick and easy read. Delano's is living a sheltered life with her great aunt and grandfather. She has been told very little about her mother who is deceased and even less about her father. What little her aunt has told her of her father hasn't been complimentary. When her Great Aunt Tilley passes away Delano begins to ask more questions about her parents and her family. I enjoyed this story and the wonderful photos that were used throughout the book. My only complaint is that there was a bit more character development. I also wanted to know more background information on Aunt Tilley and what made her so overprotective of her niece. 3 stars.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Tonya Bolden's first foray into novel writing and an impressive one. A beautifully written coming-of-age story set in early 20th century West Virginia.

[patricia_poland_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I know I really like a book if I long to know more once I finish it and that was certainly the case with this one. Loved the premise the author chose - using her own collection of old photographs, imagining the stories behind the faces and creating a family. It was easy to imagine young Delana strolling the living room with her Aunt Tilley "visiting kinfolk" (the family photos were kept in a basket from which they would be pulled and propped up around the room with Aunt Tilley giving commentary on them - this is how Delana learned about her ancestors and relatives). Would be a good book to use in a class doing a family tree/genealogy. It is also a reminder to any doing genealogy that family stories are quite often not what they seem - as Delana learns after her Aunt's death.